The Verge - Vine's porn controversy: Twitter's video-sharing app comes under fire thanks to NSFW content

Vine changes age rating to 17+ after porn controversy

2013-02-06T05:47:59Z

Vine, the video-sharing app recently released by Twitter, now requires users to confirm that they are 17 or over. The move comes after Vine ran into a storm of controversy over adult content just after launch, with hardcore pornography showing up in the "editor's picks" section. Photo-sharing service 500px was also removed from the App Store over adult content fears before returning with a 17+ rating, and Tumblr followed suit by updating its iOS app to require a mature confirmation.

Vine begins censoring searches, weeds out #porn and more

2013-01-28T21:04:06Z

In the latest development in today's pornography on Vine saga, Twitter's video-sharing app now blocks many searches for pornographic terms. Trying to search for the #porn hashtag (and other terms such as #sex, #boobs, and #booty) brings up no results at this time. However, there are still numerous workarounds — #pornvine is still allowed, for example, as is #nsfw. Users can also still tag Vines with pornographic hashtags, and other users can simply tap on those tags to pull up a feed of videos just like the previous search would have done. However, what's important to note here is that it seems Vine has already begun the process of clearing out and hiding NSFW material — while they will likely never be able to completely rid the...

Apple stops promoting Vine in wake of porn controversy

2013-01-28T20:35:49Z

Twitter's video-sharing app Vine continues to find itself embroiled in a bit of a controversy — after exposing a clearly pornographic video in its Editor's Picks section earlier this morning, Apple has decided to hide the app from view as much as possible in the iTunes Store. As noted by Business Insider, Vine was previously highlighted as an Editor's Choice app pick as early as this morning, but that distinction has now been removed. Vine is no longer listed in Apple's "new and noteworthy" section either, and it isn't even highlighted in the "social networking" section of the App Store — despite the fact that it's the number one free social networking app and the number four overall free app as of this writing.

Of course, Apple...

Hardcore porn briefly climbs to the top of Vine's 'Editor's Picks,' Twitter blames it on 'human error'

2013-01-28T14:11:56Z

The launch of Twitter's video-sharing service Vine has brought with it another look at pornography on Apple's tightly-controlled iOS platform, and that scrutiny may be about to increase — the current top Editor's Pick when you open the Vine app is a pornographic clip. Since Editor's Picks are inserted into every Vine user's main feed, it seems this video is being pushed out to a huge number of Vine users. The video is hidden behind a NSFW filter and doesn't play automatically, but nonetheless it seems some users aren't exactly happy with having porn automatically inserted into their feed. We're reaching out to Twitter now to find out exactly how this happened, but it's clear that Apple will soon have to respond — if the company can...

Apple has a porn problem, and it's about to get worse

2013-01-27T22:43:32Z

On Sunday, a number of news outlets ran stories covering the rise of easily-accessible pornography on the new video sharing app Vine, causing a firestorm of debate online. The New York Times' Nick Bilton tweeted that pornographic material was discoverable thanks to simple hashtags such as #porn.